he called the american revolution a bold and doubtful election between submission and the sword. fully expected during the revolution that he could be executed for treason. because of the intensity of that experience, he watched over it for the next 50 years -- 30, 40, 50 years, like a parent over a child in some ways. and felt so strongly about it at ensuring its survival, short of anything that would kill that experiment he would cut a deal. >> you know, the pursuit of liberty, the belief in the ideal of liberty at the core of who he is and yet his life is a contradiction the way he lived his life. >> true. >> you get at that in the book. >> yeah. it's the central contradiction of his life and the central contradiction of the american experience. thomas jefferson, who wrote the words in philadelphia in the summer of 1776 that we hold these truths to be self-evidence that we are endowed by our creator with certainin ailable rights, all men are created equal. owned slaves, protected slavery, perpetuated slavery, fathered children with slaves -- with a slave woman -- enslaved woma